Al Cross | Benefits of doing nothing

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The surprise bill of the 2014 General Assembly has been Senate President Robert Stivers' proposed constitutional amendment to shorten legislative sessions, which the Senate sent the House last week on a 34-3 vote.

Perhaps it shouldn't be that much of a surprise, because longtime watchers of the legislature can't recall a session that has accomplished less than the current one, in which legislators, particularly Democrats, seem more worried about winning re-election this fall than about taking actions to address Kentucky's chronic, long-term problems.

Legislators have created their own scheduling problems. In their 60-day sessions in even-numbered years, they largely waste 16 days waiting for the filing deadline for legislative elections to pass, so they can gauge their opposition before voting on any controversial bills.

Kentucky has one of the longest periods between the filing deadline and the primary election, 119 days. The deadline was once 55 days before the primary, but that was back in the days when the legislature met only in even-numbered years and the elections were in odd-numbered years.

In 1979, the legislature proposed, and the voters approved, a constitutional amendment moving legislative elections to even-numbered years. The ostensible reason was to give newly elected legislators time to learn the issues before acting on them, but the real, main reason was to separate legislators' elections from those of governors, to give them more independence from the chief executive and the parties' gubernatorial nominees.

Once voters had approved the amendment, lawmakers moved back the filing deadline to give themselves political wiggle room. First they made the deadline 90 days before the primary, but that wasn't enough, so they went to 119.

Meanwhile, they turned lawmaking into a good-paying job with lucrative benefits. In 2000, they persuaded voters to authorize 30-day legislative sessions in odd-numbered years, and over the decades legislators have continued to enhance their state pensions, making defeat at the polls a long-term financial hit, not just a political setback.

As the legislature became more independent of governors, it gained power, which attracted more campaign contributions from lobbying interests that stood to gain or lose at the hands of the General Assembly. The money originally went only to individual legislators, but party caucuses formed campaign committees that specialized in raising money from the lobbying interests, and when Republicans took over the Senate through party switches in 1999, the partisan competition increased.

This year, as Republicans seem poised to win their first House majority in nearly a century, there is talk of Gov. Steve Beshear raising $1 million to help House Democrats retain control, but the betting here is that Republicans will spend more, and Democrats are running scared.

"There's certainly more concern than I've ever felt," so fewer risky votes are being taken, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville, who didn't draw an opponent and says he senses "a quiet confidence that we can retain the majority."

But the House Democrats sure aren't taking any chances.

That was seen in their dismissal of Beshear's tax-reform plan, their insistence that any legislation to expand gambling had to start in the Senate, and their failure to vote on a statewide smoking ban, which was vetted by Tilley's committee last year and seemed primed for House passage this year.

A smoking ban would be the single best thing that Kentucky could do to make a significant difference in its health status, which is one of the worst in the nation and costs us billions of dollars a year. The failure to reform our archaic tax code is costing us likewise. But House Democrats are thinking short term, not long term.

To be fair, it must be said they are also looking at the Senate. Stivers has made clear that he thinks smoking bans are an infringement on personal liberty, and he makes the silly assertion that no individual should pay more taxes as a result of tax reform.

House Democrats read that and ask, "Why should I cast a vote that might be controversial when it looks like the bill can't become law anyway? And especially in a non-presidential election year, when Democratic turnout is always lower?"

The answer to that question goes to the heart what it means to be a legislator. We would like lawmakers to risk short-term defeat for long-term public good, to cast votes that they think are in the best interests of their constituents and the state, to be willing and able to explain those votes to those who see them differently, and to not live in fear of what the other chamber will or won't do. Sometimes it takes repeated action by one chamber to get the other to move.

But the ultimate argument for caution among House Democrats is that a few risky votes by a few members could create a few election results that could leave all of them in the minority, and with much less power to advance their causes. The corollary to that argument is that it's better to postpone tough votes to the 2015-16 election cycle, when Democratic voter turnout is likely to be higher.

Maybe that's one reason House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said Friday that if the Senate didn't move to expand gambling this year, he would make it House Bill 1 next year — if he is speaker, something which is very much in doubt.

Al Cross, former C-J political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and associate professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications. His opinions are his own, not UK's.